RoomHopping returns with a tour of an otherwise-mundane Carman double jazzed up with a massive Crayola-paint mural. 

“This wall has been blank for a long time,” Ben Krusling, CC ’12, informed Bwog as we walked, gawking, into his Carman double. Aside from your classic college dorm string of Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, the room is quite spare indeed. Ben has one poster up: a Rasterbated image of Dorothea Lange’s 1936 “Migrant Mother” photo. “I had another poster up there,” Krusling told Bwog sadly, “but it fell down.”

So, Krusling and three of his floormates, Jenny Shen, Jordan Hollersmith and Sofia Pancheco-Fores, headed out to Rite Aid to pick up some Crayola paint. Combining permanent acrylic paint and washable Crayola, the four Carmanites created a massive mural that spans the entirety of Krusling’s wall. The impressive mural is of one massive ghost surrounded by colorful bubbles, with a smattering of “personalized ghosts” in the bottom corner, each smaller ghost representing a different floormate. 

With the four Carman 4-ers working on the mural together, the whole project took less than the hour. Krusling originally got the idea for the mural from a drawing Shen did for her Drawing I class this semester. When Bwog asked if this artistic endeavor was legal, Krusling replied simply, “I don’t think so” but added that he intends to paint it white again at the end of the year. The most scorn Krusling gets for the mural, at least for now, is from the “Migrant Mother”, who is perched on top of the ghosts in the bottom corner. Krugling told Bwog that he and his floormates believe that “she’s condemning the mural” from her spot on the wall. 

  Photos by Liz Naiden